Ten Months
by megrim
Summary: Because in reality that’s how long it took for everything to fall into place the way it should have. Minato/Kushina


_Summary:_ Because in reality that's how long it took for everything to fall into place the way it should have.  
_Disclaimer:_ Nope, not mine; it all belongs to _Masashi Kishimoto_.  
_Warnings:_ Uh…angst? Also, Naruto is a bastard (the literal meaning) in this story.

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**Ten Months  
**_By: Shurikan0_

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**January—**

It had been at his twenty-third birthday party, a joint celebration for him and the official end of the war. Alcohol had been involved, but not to the point where all sense was lost. It hadn't been his first time, or hers, but it had been their first time together and that alone made all the difference.

**February—**

A little over a month had passed since the incident, and he hadn't given it much thought other than many sleepless nights. They hadn't been 'dating', per se, but he liked to think that they'd been heading in that direction, even if he was the Hokage and she was a foreign ninja.

**March—**

Mid-March and she'd come stomping into his office, hair awry and bellowing at the top of her lungs for him to secure a private audience with her. It hadn't been necessary; most of the workers had fled at the very sight of her, looking like a miniature she-devil, and only the ANBU remained but he ordered them to leave. Then, she dropped the figurative bomb on him, saying through her furious tears that she was pregnant.

**April**—

Three months since that horrible mistake and they were sitting, disguised as a happy couple, in a small village near the outskirts of Fire Country. A midwife came to them, checked over her, and then proclaimed that the baby was as healthy as could be, adding that seeing as it was her first pregnancy it would probably come in early October.

**May**—

Just a few days after the trip to the midwife and he held her sobbing his arms as she spluttered how her clothes wouldn't fit right anymore and she was beginning to show. It struck him then that they weren't married, he didn't even have a ring, and a baby made by them would be arriving in less than half a year.

**June**—

Eyes swiveled around to stare at her whenever she walked through the streets, her stomach now more pronounced than ever. He'd finally gotten a ring and proposed, she'd refused, and the council, now fully aware of the situation, had agreed. What image would it give to Konoha if their twenty-three year old Hokage married a girl who wouldn't even be nineteen until another month had gone?

**July—**

Her birthday came and went with him giving her two gifts: first, his kunai in case anything ever went wrong, and then a clip to pin back the hair she hadn't bothered to cut for months. That day he walked with her through the park and heard all the whispers following her, and remembered that apart from the council no one knew he was the father. She meant to keep it that way too.

**August—**

The reality of the situation pressed in on them when some of her friends asked what the baby's name would be, but never the father. One of her friends, coincidentally one of his as well, told him how she wasn't eating well enough for a pregnant woman before adding that word had arrived about Jiraiya, saying that he would be coming home soon, and that whisked away any worried thoughts he might've had.

**September—**

They'd put up a façade in the beginning, when faced with the Third or the council, soft touches here and there but nothing more. With Jiraiya's arrival though, they found that it wasn't so hard to pretend anymore. It was then, too, that they finally picked out a name for their son (she wouldn't have anything else): Naruto.

**October**—

The baby was two and a half weeks overdue, but in the panic of Kyuubi's rampage across the country, he didn't pay it much attention until realizing that the only way to save his village would be by inducing delivery on the night of Kyuubi's attack. She knew as well, and didn't fight him when he took little baby Naruto, not even an hour old, out of her tired arms.

When he was halfway to the door, her voice stopped him for a moment, rimmed with exhaustion but pride at the same time. "I don't regret it, Minato."

His last words to her were, "I don't either, Kushina."

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**AN**: Tragic and sappy much? Anyway, I just wanted to explore a different version on Naruto's parents, because I don't know if it was just my eyes or something, Kushina looked pretty young and Minato looked easily a year or so older, maybe more. And the whole inducing delivery, first babies taking longer—it's all true; my brother's a walking example.

Reviews would be nice…even if you're yelling about how this is all unrealistic.

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